Eideard

Police in Italy say they have broken up a drug ring that used a convent outside Milan to smuggle cocaine.

They said the convent’s South American janitor organised religious trips in which smugglers posing as pilgrims hid cocaine in their prayer books.

The nuns were “completely unaware” of what he was up to, police said.

They have arrested 33 suspects and seized 30kg of cocaine. They say the mafia and Colombian cartels were allegedly behind the operation. Police said the operation, in the northern city of Piacenza, had been three years in the making.

The drugs were taken from the convent to a house near Bergamo, where the cocaine was refined, cut and sent off to major cities for distribution, the police said.

So, I’ll be a nice guy and say I accept the nuns didn’t know what was going on. Maybe.

Showing off jewelry from fraudulent purchases – Facebook

In what Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart described as a “sophisticated identity-theft ring,” a janitor stole data from as many as 250 patient files at a Northwestern University physicians’ group and, with the help of her two sisters and friends, used the personal information to charge more than $300,000 in jewelry, furniture, appliances and electronics. They sold the goods to friends and relatives, pocketing the profits.

Seven suspects have been arrested, while three others, including janitor Tijuana Leonard, are wanted on felony warrants, according to the sheriff’s office…

While working the night shift for Millard Cleaning Service, Leonard, 33, of Chicago, stole personal information from patient files in the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation’s offices and passed it along to others, Dart said.

In some cases they would use the personal information to open credit accounts at retailers either online or in the store, Dart said. In other cases they added their names to victims’ accounts. They then often went on an immediate shopping spree — sometimes charging in excess of $5,000 at a time, according to the sheriff.

Dart was critical that the stores weren’t more suspicious when the ring members opened credit accounts and then quickly bought as many as four plasma TVs at a time…

Do you think?

Investigators began noticing that many the victims saw doctors on floors 19-21 of the medical facility and narrowed the search down to Leonard, the janitor assigned to those floors…

The Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation has set up a hot line for patients to call.

Well, the Medical group is really on top of things, aren’t they?

A Montreal janitor who stumbled on boxes of fake credit cards and ID while hunting down a leaky pipe was the key to a major fraud bust that is one of Canada’s largest national security investigations.

This week police revealed more details about their crackdown on international fraud, which resulted in 30 arrests after investigators raided several locations in Montreal and Ontario, including a handful of daycares.

Operation Pre-Empt is the largest counterfeit document bust in Canadian history, according to police who worked on the probe. And it started with Mark Duke, a janitor who works in an apartment building in downtown Montreal.

Duke said he was called to fix a leaky pipe in December 2006, and while tracking down the source, used his master key to enter a unit in the building. Inside, he found boxes filled with blank credit cards, passports, printers and other equipment that could be used to produce identification.

The 30 people arrested are in custody, awaiting trial in the new year.

The best way for a criminal crew to celebrate Hogmany, eh?